


A Wanderer (Once, a Long Time Ago)

by PottersPink



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Death from Old Age, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Loss of Identity, M/M, Memory Loss, Old Age, Pining, Post-Canon, although I admit it is very little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 04:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PottersPink/pseuds/PottersPink
Summary: Twenty years later, and people have moved on and live their lives peacefully. Gwen rules fairly and is surrounded by people she trusts; she can smile now, when people say Arthur’s name.Merlin searches himself for that peace, that contentment — all he finds is restlessness. A burning deep inside that will not abate. He never looks at it for too long, since if he lets himself acknowledge it, he will be forced to name it.And jealousy is a terrible, ugly thing.





	A Wanderer (Once, a Long Time Ago)

**Author's Note:**

> I lost someone precious to me this week. 
> 
> Thank you Penn, Venti & Peach for the support and beta reads. Thank you chatzy friends for keeping my spirits up and always being there to listen.
> 
> More notes about the fic at the bottom, explaining some of the tags.

_ “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Merlin.” _

Smoke billows higher and higher and the smell of burning flesh overwhelms him. Merlin looks at the tatters of Gwaine’s cloak piled high on the funeral pyre and wonders, _ what _ was _ I looking for? _

At his side, Gwen cries freely, tears falling so heavily that Merlin worries they might leave her grief permanently etched into her skin.

He doesn’t think the tears are for Gwaine, though. It probably doesn’t matter.

_ The Mourning Queen of Camelot, _they’ll call her. The smile the name conjures is involuntary; twisted and broken. 

_ Mourning, morning. New dawn, new age. The Golden Age, and Arthur is dead. _

Gwaine_ is dead — _

Merlin covers his face with his hands, overwhelmed. _ Was it worth it?_

* * *

Twenty years later, and people have moved on and live their lives peacefully. Gwen rules fairly and is surrounded by people she trusts; she can smile now, when people say Arthur’s name.

Merlin searches himself for that peace, that contentment — all he finds is restlessness. A burning deep inside that will not abate. He never looks at it for too long, since if he lets himself acknowledge it, he will be forced to name it.

And jealousy is a terrible, ugly thing.

How does one measure grief?

Is it wrong to grieve for one more than the other? 

Arthur has a whole kingdom to remember him; he has a wife and his knights and the rulers of all the other realms. He is guarded by Freya, Keeper of the Gates of Avalon. He will be protected and remembered forever. Why should Merlin have to grieve for him, too? There is nothing to grieve, since Arthur will come back, and Merlin will be there waiting for him. 

No matter how long it takes.

_ Why am I the only one who _ remembers _ Gwaine? _

Some of the older knights will point someone out and laugh, either at some antic or some filthy joke and say _ doesn’t that remind you of —?, _ and sometimes Gwen will stop to touch a bouquet of small purple flowers someone put out in the corridor, but none of them _ miss _ him. It doesn’t _ hurt _them.

Not like it still does Merlin.

* * *

Forty years later, and Percival is dying.

He lies in his bed, old and weary and wounded; he holds out a hand for Merlin, so much smaller in old age compared to the strength of his youth.

“You should rest, Merlin. Stop searching for something that isn’t there. It’s been so long, he wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

Merlin looks down at their joined hands, feeling hollow at the sight of his young, smooth skin. _ Has it been a long time? How can I be the judge of such a thing, when eternity stretches out before me?_

* * *

Sixty years later, and Gwen says “I would like to see the sun, this morning.”

_ Morning, mourning, morning, mourning. _

Gwen passes away in her favourite chair, only moments after the sun has risen high enough to bathe her room in warm light. Merlin sits next to her for an hour, numb to the tears falling down his face.

Percival, Leon, and now Gwen. She was the last thing tethering him to mortal life, to mortal time. It was taken from him so quickly; just one single, final breath.

_ What am I looking for? _he wonders, and catches the scent of burning flesh on the wind.

* * *

Two hundred years later, and Merlin is walking through a market. 

A young woman calls out to him from behind her stall, and Merlin strolls over. “You look lost,” she tells him when he’s close. “You also look like you could use something sweet.”

It’s convenient, then, that she sells sweet pastries at her booth. Merlin tells her this and she laughs, a sound that comes from her belly and she swings her head back with the force of it; her dark hair shines in the sun, and the lines at the corner of her eyes make him think she smiles a lot. She is so similar but so, _ so _different, and it makes Merlin’s heart ache. 

She asks him where he’s headed and he tells her nowhere in particular, that he’s just wandering. She offers him a place in her home for the night, and Merlin knows that that place is in her bed; he declines, but she doesn’t seem surprised by his rejection.

“Best be on your way, then,” she tells him. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Merlin startles, stepping back. “How did you —?”

Her smile is a little sad and a little too knowing. “You have an old, restless heart, I can see it in your eyes. When you live like that, you’re never just _ wandering.” _She packs up an extra couple of pastries and doesn’t accept any money for them from him. “It’s a difficult way to live. If you wander too long, you’ll only end up lost.”

* * *

Five hundred years later, and he has forgotten his name. He has forgotten that he _ had _ a name. When he looks inward, when he looks for his self, he finds the earth, the sea and the sky. How can you name someone whose heart will only stop when the sun no longer rises?

But he has a purpose, he knows. He is wandering. He is searching — 

* * *

Six hundred years later, and the lake is familiar in a way that he can’t describe. At first, he is overcome with sadness and grief and anger. When he calms, when he allows himself to look deeper, he also finds happiness and peace and love. It is confusing, to find a place that brings out such opposing emotions, and he loses time trying to figure out how it came to be.

Eventually, when the moon is full and hangs low in the sky, a woman steps out of the water, graceful in a white gown made of water and magic and starlight, and he is enthralled.

She sits by his side and takes his hand in hers. She smiles at him and pulls him into her space, playful. “What have you been thinking about? You haven’t visited in so long and yet you’ve been sitting here for three days and I haven’t heard a word from you.”

He looks at her with surprise, and her smile falls from her face. “Merlin?”

He doesn’t recognize the word, and he shakes his head in bemusement. “Do I — do I know you?”

Her grip on his hand is crushing. His words hurt her, he realizes, but he doesn’t know why. 

“Do you not recognize me, my love?”

“I don’t recognize a lot of things,” he says honestly.

“Oh, Merlin,” she says again, and he thinks that maybe — _ maybe — _ it could have been his name, once upon a time. “You’ve been alone for so long. What have you been looking for, out there all on your own?”

Such a question usually brings him to his knees with grief, but when she asks, it sounds so sincere and kind. Still, he is weak, and he turns away from her to look at the water when he answers. He has never tried to put this feeling into words. “Warmth,” he starts. Stops. Breathes. “It was — warm. _ He _was warm. And I was happy. We were happy. He was my truth, my strength. My home.”

She cries for him, and he wipes away her tears, touched by her sadness. “It’s alright,” he tells her. “I haven’t looked in the east, yet. Perhaps I will find him there.”

* * *

Seven hundred years later, and he exists. 

He knows now that he is searching for his home, the one that makes him feel warm and at peace, and the time it takes to search becomes inconsequential. He knows that if he were to think of time, if he began to watch the trees grow and the tides rise and the stars shift, he would collapse. He would despair.

Thus, time is inconsequential. _ I will find it. I will find him. _

One day, he hears whispers of a battle, of a war, and something in his mind says _ yes, that’s where I’ll find him. I will find him in battle. He is a soldier, he is a warrior. _ It is a revelation, and he knows it to be true. _ He is waiting for me to come and help him. I promised that I would come and help him._

* * *

Nine hundred years later, and stories are told by men coming back from war.

Stories of a spirit wracked by grief searching for their lost lover on the battlefield. No one can ever remember if they’re male or female, nor what they look like; they can only describe the way the cries break the hearts of all who are near when the spirit realizes their lover isn’t there. 

Now, a soldier looks up at _ the spirit _ , at _ him, _ eyes wide with wonder. He is covered in mud, filth and blood, and the trench smells of death. War is strange, now. No one wears armour and no one uses swords and underneath the smell of decay there is a scent of burning unlike that of fire or dragons or magic. “I’ve heard stories about you. I never thought you were _ real.” _

He doesn’t respond to the soldier, because how can he explain that he exists as the earth does? But it’s been so long since anyone has spoken to him, so he stays and he listens. 

The soldier tells him that this is the Second World War, and that it’s lasted for three years now. He listens as the soldier tells him about his family, about his sweetheart, about his home back in New York. He repeats the words back to himself silently, the shape of them feeling strange on his tongue.

“Do you have a name?” the soldier asks him.

He shakes his head. “Not one that I remember.”

The soldier looks alarmed. “But you do remember the name of your lover?”

He shakes his head again, and there are no words for the grief that failure brings him.

* * *

One day, many years after his meeting with the soldier, a young man with golden hair and blue eyes collapses at his feet. 

_ “Merlin,” _ he cries, “I’ve been looking for you for so long. I thought you were supposed to find _ me, _ you complete clotpole —”

“I’m sorry,” he says to the man, leaning down and taking both of his hands in his. “But I think you have the wrong person.”

The young man stares up at him in shock. “What?”

His heart aches for the young man, who is so clearly upset. “I don’t know you,” he says, not unkindly. 

The man flinches away from him as though struck. “No. No, Merlin, you _ do _ know me. I’m Arthur, it’s me, I’m _ Arthur Pendragon.” _

The name makes something inside of him beat faster, and images begin to flash through his mind; _ horses and red capes and swords and kings and laughter and there was a ring, a ring on a cord around someone’s neck, and he reaches for it, and it feels like home, it’s his home, it’s Gwai — _

“No,” he says, “You’re not. I would know. Arthur is still asleep, he doesn’t need me. He is safe, and when the time comes for him to wake, I’ll know. Someone else needs me, I know he does. I’ve been looking for him for so long, he must have been waiting for so long. I should have looked for him sooner, I should have started earlier, but —”

“Merlin —”

_ “I don’t know who that is!” _ he cries, _ “I don’t know, I don’t know! I. Don’t. Know!”_

* * *

_ He had a ring, _ he thinks, _ I remember now, he had a ring. _

He’s on a beach, alone, since the wind is biting and the clouds are dark. It is better this way, because people don’t seem to like him, and they tend to avoid him when he gets too close. 

He spends hours picking through stones and digging in the sand, and he thinks about how long it might take him to search this way around the whole world. _ But it will be worth it, when I find it. _

Eventually, when the sky behind the clouds begins to darken, a man comes up behind him. He doesn’t look up, since people seem to prefer that from him, but he is surprised when the man crouches down to his level and starts digging with him.

“What’re we looking for, mate?”

He looks up in surprise, not quite willing to believe that someone is offering to help him. The man meets his gaze with a kind smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. _ He must smile a lot. _

“A ring,” he tells him. “It is wide, and made of silver, and on a brown leather cord.”

The man’s smile turns sad, and he tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. “It must be important to you, if you’re out looking for it in this weather.”

“I… only remembered it recently. I don’t know why I forgot. I don’t know if it’s here. But I have to start somewhere.”

The man quirks a brow at him. “You’re planning on searching the whole world?”

Even though he had just thought the same thing, something inside of him _ aches _ at the question. “I have a lot of time. No one knows that I exist. I can go anywhere.”

“You’re a wanderer,” the man says. “That’s a hard way to live.”

He looks up at the man helping him. “You know?”

“Yup,” he replies, and reaches forward to comb his fingers through his hair. The man’s fingers are covered in sand, but he doesn’t care. No one has touched him in such a way for a very long time, but this man _ knows. _ “I was a wanderer, once, a very long time ago.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

The question must not be what the man was expecting — he lowers his gaze and he takes deep breaths, as though to calm himself. “Yes,” he says, and when he looks up again he’s crying, but he’s also smiling. “I did. I found a home, and it was warm, and I was happy. My home was where I could be my truest self, and it was Magic.”

He doesn’t recognize the feeling bubbling inside of him. “That’s what I’m looking for, too. My Strength. My home.”

The man smiles at him and he doesn’t ever want him to stop, he wants him to comb his fingers through his hair again and he wants to hear him laugh. 

“What do you say to taking a break for the night, hm? I’ve got a spare room, if you’d like.” 

“In your home?” He asks slowly, unsure of himself; home is important, he knows, after spending such a long time searching for it. “You would welcome me there?”

The man stands, pulling him to his feet. He isn’t surprised that he is taller than the man, and he likes the way his hair falls behind his shoulders when he looks up at him. 

“Well,” the man replies, giving his hand a squeeze, “I would like to think that you would also find comfort in any place that I call home.”

“That is very kind of you.” He is unbelievably touched that this man would offer such a thing to him.

“I think you’re the only one who’s ever called me kind, even though I don’t really deserve it, not after all this time. There’s actually one fellow I know who’s called me everything but.” The man’s smile is bittersweet when he looks up at him through his lashes. “And now, I really can’t blame him.”

He doesn’t know what to say, but perhaps — “Searching is hard. Sometimes we make mistakes. I…” he turns to look at the water, nearly black in the night now, “I hope that wherever he is, my home forgives me, too. I’ve taken so long.”

The man takes another deep breath, and stares hard at the ground. “Do you remember his name?”

“No,” he shakes his head as they begin to walk. “But maybe I will when I remember mine. It’s only fair that I remember myself only when I remember him.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> I have chosen not to tag MCD for this fic because the story begins during Gwaine's funeral for his death in canon, and Gwen & Percival's deaths are peaceful and from old age, with no connection to the plot.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated 💕


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